The parents of a boy found wandering in southwest Forsyth on Tuesday night were reunited with their son Wednesday afternoon.

Someone recognized a photo of the child online Wednesday morning and contacted the Forsyth County Sheriff’s Office, said spokesman Doug Rainwater.

The child had given a false name and age to the agency, Rainwater said.

The boy said he was 10-year-old Jonathan Frances, when in fact he is 12 years old and has a different name, Rainwater said.

“Once we had his correct name, we were able to check him on the computer, and he came back a missing runaway juvenile,” Rainwater said.

The boy’s parents were very happy to find him safe, he said.

His mother had reported him missing Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. from his home on Powers Ferry Road in Cobb County, he said.

The sheriff’s office then interviewed the child, who said he had walked to a gas station on Delk Road, about a mile from his home, and climbed on a trailer being towed by a landscaping truck, Rainwater said.

“He went up under a tarp on the trailer and hid,” he said. “That landscape truck just happened to come all the way to Forsyth County yesterday evening. It stopped along Hwy. 9 … and that’s when he left the trailer and started walking himself.”

The driver likely had no idea the boy was on the trailer, and he probably took Interstate-285 and Ga. 400 to Forsyth County, Rainwater said.

The boy didn’t say why he left home.

News reports show that the boy had run away from home at least twice before, in February 2012 and October 2011.

A passer-by called 911 about 11 p.m. Tuesday after seeing the child running back and forth across Hwy. 9, just north of the Fulton County line.

Deputies, working with police in the nearby city of Milton, set up a command center on Hwy. 9 and spent the next 13 hours searching for his family and canvassing the area.

The case has been reported to the Cobb County Department of Children and Family Services.